Monday, March 19, 2012

Because the Miami Herald did a major feature on the case Sunday, I've become interested in the case of Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old black Florida youth shot dead by a would-be neighborhood watch captain. Martin was carrying nothing more dangerous than a bag of Skittles back from a convenience store. No one has been charged. The question arises, naturally, if his race played a role in the shooting and whether police would have been so slow to charge a black man who gunned down a 17-year-old white youth.

Also, and this was moving, was a column by the New York Times' Charles Blow. He's a black man with teen sons who says the case underscores his own fears about the dangers young black men face on account of racial attitudes, perceptions about crime and the rest.

More by Max Brantley

Attorney General Leslie Rutledge went to court late yesterday to get the state Supreme Court to halt mediation ordered by Circuit Judge Tim Fox in the case over issuing birth certificates to same-sex parents.

The men and women who patrol Little Rock in black and white vehicles tell a story in black and white.

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Lawyers facing federal court sanctions for forum shopping a class action insurance case have brought in new legal guns from out of state to fight potential sanctions.

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